Each of them with different layout and pinouts as our initial intention was to expose all possible features of every processor.

The experience we got from selling the SOMs for the past 5 years is that 99% of customers do not need all specific interfaces, but few common interfaces.
For instance very few customer need 12 UARTs and 6 I2C in their design, but almost all need Ethernet, HDMI, SATA etc.

Another important point is that soon or later the project they working on scale up and they need more memory or more processor power and with the current SOMs they have no option but redesign.

Every big customer need longevity assurance. They do not want to change their design every couple of years when the SOC manufacturer obsolete their processors, they do not want to re-design every 6 month when new processor with 4-6-8-10-12-24 cores appear to the market with preliminary buggy software support.

So with the years one another idea evolved – we should try to make one universal SOM layout with known interfaces on known pinout, so if customer need more memory he just switch to SOM with same pinout but more memory, if need more power he switch to SOM with same pinout but more powerful SOC.

We have experience with Allwinner, Rockchip and TI, so we considered these processors as potential new SOM SOCs:

A20, A64, RK3399, AM335X

After long discussions we decided that the universal SOM should have these signals:

With this SOM we tested A20 with two Ethernet interfaces: one Gigabit and one Megabit working together. The practice prove A20 can have two separate working Ethernets, but there is one issue both share same clock, so if the both Ethernet works together they can be only Megabit.

The second SOM204 module we work on is with A64.
The features are 2GB RAM, 4/8/16/32/64GB eMMC, Gigabit Ethernet interface, 2K EEPROM
Optional features not assembled by default: SPI Flash with hardware WP, Second Gigabit Ethernet (USB-Gigabit), SATA (USB-SATA), CAN.

The third SOM204 module we work on is with RK3399.
The features are 4GB RAM, 4/8/16/32/64GB eMMC, Gigabit Ethernet, PCIe, USB3, 2K EEPROM
Optional features not assembled by default: SPI Flash with hardware WP, Second Gigabit Ehternet (USB-Gigabit), SATA (USB-SATA), CAN.

A20-SOM204 and SOM204-EVB will be for sale in November. Prices will be comparable to existing A20-SOM A20-SOM-EVB.

A20-SOM204 is separate product and not meant to replacement A20-SOM neigher we have intentions to discontinue A20-SOM. Both products will be active and in production.

Software support for all SOM204 modules will include Android and Linux.

This scandal covers buying Microsoft licensees for Romanian administration from 2004 to 2012 for total 228 millions USD.

During the investigation was found that more than 100 people, former ministers, mayor of Bucuresti and businessman are involved in this corruption scandal and more than 20 millions euro are paid as bribes.
The Romanian court ruled in March 2016 with sentences for 8 years of prison and 9 millions euro of asset forfeiture for the 4 persons on the picture.
These sentences were appealed and October 3rd the High Court of Cassation and Justice (HCCJ) confirmed the guilt and increased the sentences to 14 years in prison and 17 millions of euro of asset forfeiture for these same persons.

I have nothing to add but my admiration for the working Romanian Judiciary.

Bulgaria and Romania joined EU back in 2007 together and while Romanian people has will to change their future, the things in Bulgaria has very little improvements. In Romania there are near hundred of corrupted politics and public administrators in prison, in Bulgaria there are none. Supreme court in Bulgaria is overwhelmed with files, as everyone appeal his case for every small disputes up to the highest level. They have files which they have no capacity to review for next few years. So effectively there is no working Judiciary in Bulgaria. Тo judge someone here is just waste of money and time.

Bulgarian government spent almost 60 million of euro for Microsoft licensees from 2007 to 2011 and the “tender” winner is always one and same company. I already posted about my wondering why such amount is spent for something with free alternative. Another question is why administration spends money for platform with 99% of all viruses existing and which is tool for US agencies to spy all around the world?

The information about Romanian corruption scandal was taken from here . I used Google translator so some numbers may be inaccurate 🙂

Just one year after NXP bough Freescale, now they try to sell to Qualcomm!

What is going on with this Semiconductor industry?

It’s long time not driven by engineering, innovations and products anymore, just shareholders and calculations what if we buy or sell this or that player in the field.

Qualcomm is well known name together with Mediatek they dominate mid-low end of the smart phone market, where Apple and Samsung share the high end.

Obviously their business is booming last years, they took also the Lion’s share of the tablet market where Chinese companies like Allwinner and Rockchip had some share, but the absence of RF in their SOC doomed them in the connectivity dominated world we live now.

What NXP can give to Qualcomm which they do not have yet is mystery for me. What will happen with Freescale and NXP products if Qualcomm buy them is also unpredictable.

Qualcomm do not publish any info for their products and they share just with few partners under strict NDAs. They are the opposite of how NXP and Freescale did their business so far with small users friendly approach.

What’s next? To promise to Qualcomm that will buy 100 000 pcs of future LPCxxx product to get the datasheet under NDA?

One is for sure imx.X is not going to be developed further as Qualcomm has plenty of competing products.

On Embedded world I saw nice box made from metal which assembly simple with one screw.

I liked it a lot and when got back asked few friends who I know deal with metal processing if this box can be done here.

We do lot of laser cut details and our laser cutter said no problem, we can cut this box and there is place with CNC bending where we can bend and paint the boxes.

Here is the very first result:

on the bottom has option for rubber feets or for stand-offs which can attach to other surface:

you have access to all connectors:

and buttons:

The new version have also openings for the cables from inside.

The boxes can be in any RAL color, we will offer them initially matte black and “computer” ivory.

We are waiting sample painting to proceed with the production.

Box Model-A will be as on the pictures above, but without the ventilation openings. Box Model-B will be 3.5 mm higher to may fit inside SATA drive and LiPo battery 1400mAh and will have ventilation openings.

Price target is EUR 10 for Model-A and EUR 15 for Model-B (bigger size and cutting the openings increase the time for manufacture and affect the price). For minimal order of 100 pcs the box can be painted in any RAL color and be same price.

Having access to such technology make me feel like baby in candy shop! Same box type for LIME and LIME2 is now drawing and we will have samples next week.

Another metal box / panel LCD 7″ display + LIME/LIME2 inside is on the drawing desk, I will keep you updated. Panels for 4.3″ and 10″ LCDs are to follow.

Building complete Metal industrial LCD panel with -40+85C operating temperature with LAN, USB, CAN, RS232, RS485 is now also possible.

EDIT: While I was blogging new versions of the boxes arrived:

this is Model-B which have increased height and space to assembly SATA drive inside:

in the new version we also add small window or flat cable to go out

and box to still close nicely:

powder painting make the boxes look very professional:

the problem when you have millions of colors to choose from is that you don’t know what to choose 🙂 we will start with simple black cover and grey, dark red and dark blue base as white matte (right side) makes each of your fingerprints to appear on the box when you touch it 🙂

We will have the boxes Model A and Model B on the web for sale next week! The painting is the slowest operation and takes a week.

Lot of peoples from 9.00 to 18.00 on our booth and leg pain at the end of the day.

We are exhibiting our IoT platform and The DIY Laptop.

ST has interesting display on their booth showing how many STM32 devices they have sold and this display is interractive as the numbers go up every second, if this is real or just show it not so interesting, the number of 1.5 billion devices sold is impressive! And this is just one ARM vendor, I wonder what is the total number of all ARM devices sales.

NXP had interesting truck on their booth:

Lot of companies were exhibiting metal formed boxes, we already stolen few ideas to experiment with when we come back 😉 Time to learn LibreCAD for 2D drawing!